About the Author

Randolph M. Nesse, MD, is a founder of the field of
evolutionary medicine and co-author with George C. Williams of
Why We Get Sick. He served for many years as Professor of
Psychiatry, Professor of Psychology and Research Professor at the
University of Michigan. He currently is the Founding Director of
the Center for Evolution & Medicine at Arizona State University
where he is also a Foundation Professor in the School of Life
Sciences. He is a Fellow of the Association for Psychological
Science, a distinguished Life Fellow of the American Psychiatric
Association, and an elected Fellow of the AAAS.

Reviews

"All psychiatrists and patients who find themselves having
occasional 'bad feelings' about our current understanding of mental
illness will have many 'good reasons' to consult this book. I do
fully expect that someday nearly all psychiatry will be identified
as evolutionary psychiatry. If so, Randolph Nesse's book should be
seen as the field's founding document."
--The Wall Street Journal

"Important and fascinating...The future of clinical psychiatry
is likely to be embedded in the integration of this [Nesse's] type
of evolutionary theoretical framework."
--Nature "An ingenious exploration of how Darwinian evolution
explains mental disorders."
--Kirkus Reviews (starred review) "Nesse (Why We Get Sick),
director of the Center for Evolutionary Medicine at Arizona State
University, thought-provokingly comments on modern medicine's
continuing difficulties in treating mental illness... Nesse fully
meets his modest but laudable goal of providing a
conversation-starter on why mental illness should be viewed from an
evolutionary perspective."
--Publishers Weekly "Nesse's book offers fresh thinking in a field
that has come to feel stagnant, even if new therapeutic avenues are
not immediately obvious... Recasting our psychiatric and
psychological shortcomings as the unintended sprawling by-products
of evolution seems a useful way of understanding why our minds
malfunction in the multiple, messy ways that they do."
--The Financial Times "An excellent and timely account of the
history, development and implications of evolutionary
psychiatry."
--Evening Standard "To quote a renowned geneticist, 'Nothing in
biology makes sense except in the light of evolution.' A quarter
century ago, Randolph Nesse bravely helped apply this dictum to
medicine. Now, in Good Reasons For Bad Feelings, he tackles
the deeper evolutionary question of why we, our minds, and our
brains are so vulnerable to mental illness. He navigates the
dangers of either too much or too little adaptationism, deftly
handles the false dichotomy between psychological and biological
perspectives, and bridges abstract intellectualizing with pressing
clinical need. This is a wise, accessible, highly readable
exploration of an issue that goes to the heart of human
existence."
--Robert M. Sapolsky, author of Behave "Randolph Nesse is one
of the key architects of evolutionary medicine. He's been an
inspiration to a generation of scientists who explore evolution to
understand why we get sick from diseases ranging from cancer to
obesity to infectious diseases. Now Nesse has turned his attention
from the body to the mind, in a provocative book full of intriguing
explanations about human nature in all its strengths and
weaknesses."
--Carl Zimmer, author of She Has Her Mother's Laugh: The
Powers, Perversions, and Potential of Heredity "Those powerful
feelings that fill our day, that give us the oomph to act one way
or another are the guardrails to living and this wonderful books
explains all of them. Randolph Nesse has done it again."
--Michael S. Gazzaniga, Director, Sage Center, UC Santa Barbara,
author of Tales from Both Sides of the Brain

"[A] testament to Professor Nesse's command of the field of
evolution and medicine as well as his extraordinary ability to
explain enormously complex ideas in plain English."
--Riadh Abed in the The Royal College of Psychiatry Evolutionary
Psychiatry Special Interest Group Newsletter

"A book as wise and illuminating as it is relevant to our daily
lives."
--Sarah Blaffer Hrdy, Professor Emerita of Anthropology, UC
Davis, author of The Woman that Never Evolved and Mother
Nature "Randolph Nesse, who trained psychiatrists for many years,
has for a quarter century been a key leader of evolutionary
medicine. Good Reasons for Bad Feelings integrates these two
strands of his life and thought in a readable, insightful book, as
much a philosophy of emotions as it is a new window on mental
illness. All who want to know themselves should read it."
--Melvin Konner, Dobbs Professor of Anthropology, Emory University,
author of The Tangled Wing "Clear and engaging, and the narrative
reflects a masterful blend of history, novel ideas, and clinical
experience in an insightful and coherent manner. I hope it is
widely read and discussed."
--Eric Charnov, Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Evolutionary
Ecology, University of Utah, MacArthur Fellow "This will become
a treasured classic; not just for clinicians but for all those
interested in how to facilitate well-being and create more moral
communities and societies." --Professor Paul Gilbert OBE, author of Compassionate
Mind, and Living like Crazy "'Why am I feeling bad?' This is
the first burning question of everyone who suffers. This accessible
new book will be an essential tool to help patients, their loved
ones, and treating professionals arrive at more satisfying
answers."--Jonathan Rottenberg, Professor of Psychology, University of
South Florida, author of The Depths "A bold book that would have
made Darwin proud. Cutting-edge and compassionate at the same
time."--Lee Dugatkin, Professor of Biology, University of Louisville,
co-author of How to Tame a Fox and Build a Dog "A masterful,
groundbreaking book that persuasively challenges standard clinical
wisdom and provides a roadmap for the transformation of our
conceptually confused psychiatric nosology. With crystal clarity,
Nesse reviews what we know of our biologically designed emotions
and argues for unflinching acceptance of our evolved nature as a
baseline for understanding both normal and disordered suffering...
Anyone interested in mental health--laypeople, students,
clinicians, and scholars--will be grateful for the novel insights
to be gained from this important book."--Jerome C. Wakefield, Professor of Psychiatry, New York
University, co-author of The Loss of Sadness "What is
the nature of suffering, its origin and its adaptive significance?
Good Reasons for Bad Feelings may well become a legend, as it is a
book about psychology, psychiatry, biology and philosophy that is
also a good read, and it opens the door to deep questions in a
manner that is tender, quizzical, and industrious."--Judith Eve Lipton, MD, co-author of Strength Through Peace
"Very engagingly written for the general reader, Nesse's book is
hugely important for the future of mental health care, and Nesse is
the pre-eminent person to write it. It provides a personalized and
lively but well documented treatise on how we humans function as we
do and on needed changes in the way psychiatry thinks about
troublesome mental experiences and behavior. It draws on an
impressive range of knowledge, from not only psychiatry, including
extensive case descriptions, but also psychology, biology,
philosophy, and humanistic literature. Many readers will find it
hard to put the book down."--Eric Klinger, Emeritus Professor of Psychology, University of
Minnesota "Two sets of ideas inform this fine book: one, the
cold-hearted logic of natural selection; the other, the practical
wisdom of a compassionate psychiatrist. The tension is palpable.
The result is riveting."--Nicholas Humphrey, Emeritus Professor of Psychology, London
School of Economics, author of Soul Dust "Good Reasons for Bad
Feelings by Randy Nesse is a delightful book. It is insightful
about the human condition, sanguine and not over-stated. And it is
written in a straight-forward and delightful manner, personal and
professional, and with humor. Neese is one of the originators of
the field of evolutionary medicine. This is a welcome book in
evolutionary psychiatry and on the biological basis of the emotions
and our cultural evolution."--Jay Schulkin, Research Professor of Neuroscience, Georgetown
University "In Good Reasons for Bad Feelings, leading
evolutionary theorist, psychiatrist Randolph Nesse, begs us to ask
the right question: Why did natural selection make us so prone to
mental disorders of so many kinds and intensities? It is no
exaggeration to say that he opens the door to a new paradigm in
thinking about human beings and their conflicted lives. A
pathbreaking book by a man who is truly humane and caring. A
privilege to share time with him."--Michael Ruse, Werkmeister Professor of Philosophy, Florida
State University, author of On Purpose "How did we end up
recognizing that every system in the body has a function shaped by
evolutionary selection and yet thinking that systems in the mind do
not? How did physical and mental health drift so far apart?
Randolph Nesse explains, in this highly readable book, how
'symptoms' in psychiatry should be seen in their evolutionary
context, and that anxiety and depression for example have
functions, just as do inflammation, blood clotting, or a cough.
Nesse is a pioneer of evolutionary psychiatry, which has the
potential to revolutionize mental health care."--Simon Baron-Cohen, Professor of Developmental Psychopathology,
Cambridge University "This book sets out to show how evolution
underpins (or should underpin) psychiatry. In doing so, it will
surely change the face of medicine -- and deservedly so."--Robin Dunbar, Emeritus Professor of Evolutionary Psychology,
University of Oxford "Randy Nesse has brought a new and
important synthesis to the study of illnesses that psychiatrists
deal in. This engagingly accessible, pioneering book provides a
wide range of answers for how something as maladaptive as bipolar
disorders could have evolved. It provides a wide range of answers
for why natural selection has left us vulnerable to so many mental
disorders, and the "mystery of missing heredity" is identified as a
key problem. Nesse shows that by taking into account complex
pleiotropic effects, natural selection may push some useful trait
close to a fitness peak near a "cliff edge" despite the disabling
consequences for a few individuals who go over the edge. Thus a
gene may be useful to many, but with bad luck contribute to
victimizing the few. This complex problem surely will yield to
further research."--Christopher Boehm, Professor of Biological Sciences, USC
Dornsife

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